I'm Catholic, so I grew up around lots of Mary OtherName girls :) and for that reason, Mary Ann sounds so natural and classic to my ears. But I love the suggestion of Marian, too. Congratulations on your newest little one!

Closeness to family -- both geographical and emotional Warm weather, preferably tropical -- allowing us to be outside daily and grow my favorite fruits and plants Secure income and flexible work schedules -- financial peace of mind and ability to balance work/life ** I'm fortunate to have all three, and feel I have a great quality of life.

My sister's MIL is like that. She borders on martyrdom, but sincerely she just needs to be needed ... once her first husband died, kids grew up, grandkids aged into independence, that need just wasn't filled any more (through them). They need her in one sense (presence) but she needs to be needed in a more direct way. She can't differentiate between the various ways we need people in our lives, and it's unfortunate for the relationships she unwittingly pushes to the side in favor of those she sees as fulfilling her need to be (directly) needed. She could have gotten a puppy dog, but instead she got a second husband. He was (is) all about being taken cared for. He's a nice guy, but not a nice husband in that he takes advantage of her need to be needed. In this way, they are both opportunists but hey - it works for them. She's a caretaker, she needs to be taking care of people. That was the basis of her first marriage, her parenting years, and that's what she knows and where she feels comfortable. I'd guess she's insecure in her relationships otherwise, if she doesn't feel she's directly taking care of someone -- and that's hard if it's such a central part of her identity. Still, I know for my BIL it stings like hell when she pulls stunts like your Mom just did. It's like he's being punished (by her) for not needing her to baby him or bail him out of things. At least he knows at this point he realizes this is about her need to be needed, and not because she's not interested in him (though it can feel that way). Sorry for both of you to have those kinds of moms ((hugs)).

It wouldn't let me vote if I only answered one question. I don't know or care, so I've delegated that responsibility and any corresponding worry. I know we have no debt, and our homes and cars are paid for. Our business is in the black but our stock investments aren't expected to fully recover. I'm not worried about my retirement years.

I'm just waiting for my dad to realize the same. B) LOL

Funny you mention it's because I do! I can't remember her name and she has no posts on the first page right now, but the first time I saw her avatar it took me aback. Same face, but she is white with long, blonde hair and I am an island girl with short, black hair. It's kinda .... weird lol. Wish I could recall her handle.

When I left my island home, I had my heart and mind set on one place. Only. It was the only place I was willing to leave and re-settle. And we did. And we traveled, and I discovered there were other places I liked also :) places that had to grow on me, but that I eventually came to appreciate in their own rights. Vermont is lovely. No, it's not the western edge of the Adirondacks, but it's not far for a cabin or to take regular visits. What is it about the western Adirondacks that he's set on? Is it a memory from a prior visit/home? Is it something he saw or read? If you can hone in on why he's so darn set on that one spot, you can find other areas that he may be willing to consider. The key is to let him think he's the one deciding to consider it, rather than you being the one trying to convince him that the western Adirondacks aren't happening ;) and that's totally doable. What do you do? You indulge him. Look for homes in his area. Then look online at homes in neighboring states, that mimic what he envisions he'll have in the western Adirondacks. He doesn't have to commit, just compromise (to look) -- he wants to look at the western Adirondacks, so you do; you want to look near that but outside of NY, so you (both) do. Make sense? At some point you'll find an area or home you both feel as being right, and you'll move forward from there ... deciding who will ultimately make the bigger compromise. But at this point, there's no need for you to throw in the towel on your business. Your desires are equally valid, and it's reasonable for you to expect he'll take them into account as you are taking his. The flip side being if he's a stubborn guy who has drawn his line in the sand ("I'm only moving if we move to ___ ), then YOU have to decide which YOU want more: to stay put and work, or to move and find a different business. In my situation, I was your husband. I drew my line and expected my husband to deal with it if he wanted to move so badly. And he did. And I'm no longer such a brat LOL but I felt like he wanted to uproot me AND deny me the only place I felt would be able to compete with home!

The "Ritalin Diet" is common where I live. Moms get ritalin prescriptions for their children, but take the ritalin themselves for weight loss.

Spring makes me hungry for mango. I'll bring a nice mango and pineapple salsa. My weekend was productive, so very good. Lots done, lots more yet to do! I put on the radio when I shower, so I can be found singing to just about anything - just depends what station the last person left it on :) I sing all genres equally awful.

I have friends that work in NYC but commute in from neighboring states. Is that a possible compromise? He'd be pretty darn close to NY and you'd still be able to work at your current gig. Which part of NY was he thinking?

I sleep on a futon on the floor. Actually on a tatami mat, but that's on the floor. When I married we got a platform bed like these for the tatami mats. That was okay, but I preferred sleeping on the floor so we ended up giving the platform bed away to his sister (who still has it and uses a regular mattress on it - no boxspring). I don't hate white furniture, but I love the natural look of wood more. I think white can look fresh and is great for certain "looks" (cottage, beach, etc.) if that's a look you love, all the better!

Surely you are not! Look, I don't know who this lady is but what you've described above is my sister. She's extremely type A. She's creative and having kids gave her a limitless field upon which to play (birthdays, school days, clothing, hairbows, felted wool toys and all of that crap). She has a knack for these things, and it's the thrill of learning a new skill and then embracing it head on and going crazy with it that keeps her going. Quite literally, keeps her going; it fuels her in a way that would thoroughly exhaust me. I get tired just hearing her IDEAS. And she has a million of them, half of which will see fruition. She's a born planner/organizer and excellent time manager. She can multitask like nobody's business, and this skill allows her to do things like plan parties while homeschooling and working. Her brain never stops. Mine takes frequent breaks, and the most I can multitask is to think type in close time proximity to one another LOL. We're just born with different skills and strengths, hers no better than mine. She has seven kids but has never even worn maternity clothes. She's never needed to. We're naturally petite and one never knows she's pregnant from behind because all of her weight is in her teeny pregnant belly. (This is another way in which we differ LOL) That's just genetics, and is completely unrelated to anything she does (or doesn't do) in terms of health or diet. Our mom spent 24 years either pregnant, nursing, or both. She never saw a doctor so we can't be sure but she's 80 lbs now and I bet she never hit higher than 100 for any of her pregnancies. That said, my good friend looks great but has had lipo. Many of the moms in our circle are on the R-diet. Who knows what others are doing to look the way they do, you know? You can't know, so it's not a fair comparison to make against yourself. Our kids are in several sports, and that's where delegation comes in. If we didn't live so close to each other AND to our extended family, our kids would have to limit their sports. Delegation is also key to large families. I really do think it's hardest to have between two and four kids. One would have its challenges, too, but once you hit five ... delegation becomes a necessary part of life. She can find the time to take and edit pictures because she's delegated lunch making to one of her kids, for example. Snippets of time to a great ultitasker are like weeks of alone time for someone like me. I get a fifteen minute lull in my day and I spend 11 of those enjoying it and trying to figure out how to spend it LOL. Then four minutes wishing I had spent more time doing, than planning it! Different skills, different strengths, hers no better than mine. Most people don't know my sister suffers from anxiety and adrenal fatigue, no doubt related to her lifestyle and natural tendencies. It's not something she shares, but I know people think she has a charmed and easy life without knowing the full picture. I don't doubt the same is true for many people, most especially those we think make it all look so easy. There's always a price, and not all of us are privy to seeing it. My mom was a lot like my sister. My mom was/is awesome, and my sister is a lot like her. But I would've been just as happy with the mom who only ever read to us in bed - minus the premediated fun and parties and such. I didn't need the other stuff. Not all kids do. I'd have been happy to have a "good enough" mom that loved me and loved herself. The rest is gravy. I bet I'm not the only kid who feels this way ;)

Aside from the fact that my kids are now all humming and singing that awful song ... we enjoyed that, very creative! Looking forward to the next production B)

I was in a similar situation as Chris in VA, except I was the other friend. The one who was never good at handling life any how, and became easily overwhelmed by things that wouldn't have phased my friend. Good intentions, poor follow through and all of that. It was never my intent to allow her to feel neglected. I couldn't even really think beyond "this is what has to get done this very minute" in terms of my day to day life, much less get all deep into her emotional needs (much less my own). But she valued me enough to bring it up, we had a heart to heart, and I'm so very grateful she did. It might have been more comfortable for her to just drop me, without giving me a chance to know how she felt (unappreciated, one-sided relationship) and to show her how much she DID mean to me (by taking her needs to heart and working on our friendship). I'm still not as good as she is, but I've made considerable effort (which is all she wants anyway - she knows me well enough to know my shortcomings and to not expect I'm going to re-invent myself as her ideal friend). She has always been the more forward one in our relationship, the take charge one, and I failed to recognize that even she ... in that role ... needed a break, and sometimes was tired of being that one. Is it possible that people perceive you the same way? The one who initiates? So it speaks more to how they see your role within the social circle moreso than it does how they see you (friend/not-friend)? I'm sorry you're feeling ignored. That's a horrible way to feel (((hugs))). If it's any consolation, the more outgoing and initiative people are ... the less inclined I am to initiate things with them. It makes no sense outside of my head, but I figure they're just busy and they'll initiate something with me as they're able to. I suppose I feel like as outgoing as they are, they must have a full social life. Assumptions being what they are, .... I'm sorry.

Curling looks like shuffleboard LOL. I can see where that'd be fun to watch, too :) Is ping pong a sport? That's pretty fun to watch, too.

TV-wise, I voted basketball. It's quick but not too fast (I'm talking to you, hockey!) and not excruciatingly slow (hello, baseball!) ... or stopping every ten seconds like football (yawn!) ... but my true favorite is surfing, especially to watch IRL. I have to google "curling" to see what that is ...

I don't tend to compare myself to others, so I've not really experienced the issue of a blog making me feel forlorn. I think it's because I feel pretty confident that I'm doing the best I can, with what I have, at this point in my life. I feel secure in my shortcomings. This is a maturation, though; as a youth all I DID was compare myself to others. Damn near drove me to the crazy house. I finally realized and accepted, and even came to prefer, that I couldn't do it all. And that I could continue to try, never succeed, and miss out on everything I was allowing to fly by in my desperate and wasted quest for Ultimate Perfection ... or I could come to appreciate quality over quantity, effort over outcome, and people over ideas of perfection. As I came into a family of my own, the "couldn't do it all" mentality further evolved into a "shouldn't do it all" frame of mind. I shouldn't stress about all the things I could be doing because I have more than enough that I should be doing! The luxury of boredom and free time, that's where the problem rests LOL.

My MIL asked us to choose a bed. The one I wanted was pricier than I felt comfortable asking her to pay for, so I felt incredibly rude asking ... and yet I didn't want to settle for a less-than bed for the sake of niceties. Her people have a superstition about new couples requiring new beds, which complicated matters, so she was ridiculously insistent. We ended up splitting the cost of the order. She tried to cover all of it, and was financially able to, but I just couldn't ask that of them. The poor customer service guys ... trying to decide which crazy, stubborn lady to cater to, the MIL trying to charge the entire order or the DIL insisting he split the cost of the order! (He split it. I was a repeat customer so I ultimately won out LOL) It was a great gift idea, even if it was rooted in superstition. We loved that bed! I hate gift cards and I hate cash gifts. The one exception I can think of is for housewarming gifts that aren't for my immediate female family (whose tastes I know or who feel comfortable telling me exactly what they want). Throughout the early years of my marriage, my MIL gave us cash gifts at holidays so we could purchase wants (since most of our funds went to needs) and/or practicalities (like the lawn mower mentioned upthread, or a washer/dryer). So thoughtful of her.

I enjoy makeup :) I have different levels of application. For staying home all day, I wear mascara and lip gloss. I like the bit of color it brings to my face, especially when I chance upon my reflection. For everyday I wear eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick. It takes me longer to brush my teeth than to apply my make-up. I have a drawer full of lipsticks, 30+ tubes from nude to near-black and everything in between. My eyeliner and mascara are simple, and always black. My face is done in about 3 minutes. For work days I add in foundation (Shisheido compact foundation applied with brush instead of accompanying sponge - goes on light and smooth) and blush. This still only takes a total of 5 minutes, if that. For going out I add in eye shadow and false eyelashes, and I'll use BB cream then green concealer for any red around my nose before I apply foundation. This takes my total prep up to 10 minutes, give or take. Make-up doesn't have to take a long time. It can, but it needn't.

You also cut/laminate numbers, maybe a few of each number. If you wanted to be extra fancy you could put velcro tabs on the back of those numbers and also on the laminated sudoku card -- easy to move around that way :) Or you could assign each number a color token, similar to the ones found at educational stores. The clear type ones teachers use on their overhead projectors, or like the ones in AAS. So red = 1, yellow = 2, and so on. You'd probably need a laminated code sheet, too LOL. OP, I think DH needs a set of popsicle sticks. He can build a bridge. A series of bridges. Make himself a little physics project B)

My kids and I must be your long-lost twins :) this is us, too! I do set an unspoken time limit, though. For the kids, anyhow. A few chapters is one thing, but any more than that and I worry they'll get a hemorrhoid LOL. The pain and suffering it would cause me to live with a kid experiencing a hemorrhoid is worth the huffing and puffing I get by forcing them out after a reasonable time!

Binignit is my favorite Easter dessert. I look forward to it every year! Right now I hear the kids playing in the backyard, my uncles and aunties singing awful karaoke, and the din of other relatives around the property visiting. I'm taking a mental health break from the crowd :)

We dyed some eggs, sang bad karaoke, ate way too much, and hosted a come-and-go that brought in about 80 people throughout the day. About 30 are still here.

:leaving: :smilielol5: :ph34r: LOL

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a song can evoke such strong emotions out of me. Smells, too. I know it was a sad feeling at first, but how sweet that your grandma and uncle had a few moments with you today - in memory, if nothing else. Oh, and hormones ... well, they evoke some strong emotions out of me, too. Smells, too, for that matter. TMI? LOL Ah, PMS. Good times, good times ....